Cory Doctorow's latest is a bleak but important review of how private equity is gutting our markets, with no clear end in sight.

I wish I had something glib to say, but we're living in tough and corrupt times.

The world's burning and some are busy looting as it all falls down.
https://pluralistic.net/2023/07/20/continuation-fraud/#buyout-groups

Just a wee snippet from some of the celebrations in the local mall today. Many local costumes on display around town for Colombia's independence day. The ruana is a paisa's poncho - and colouring often tells you a lot about region. #Colombia

Some days, when I'm listening to folks still enamoured by the story of themselves, I also hear the silence of my own.

It's a tough gig sometimes, keeping that story going. I had *such* plans as a kipper. I propelled myself forward into new adventures on *such* drive even amid hardships later on.

Then there are days when one knows one has to keep the story going, but it just feels utterly played out.

On those days, I take the grouchy old man in me out for a walk.

It's a nice day for a walk.

@daniel !

I picked up a few stray letters for you.

😬 Sorry for the junk. Hope you can find a use for them today! 🤗

As much as I appreciate the opportunity to be present with folks struggling if I can...

Tonight I will not be walking, let alone with the means to help, so... 🙃 hopefully no local humanitarian crises on my plate.

It is #Running time. 💪🏻

Both for its own sake, and because I have to think through my thesis for this essay before evening classes.

Happiest of midweek evenings, all of you!

Hellooooo First Page Syndrome my old friend.

I'm reviewing the essay I drafted the other night, for possible submission soon. It's not bad, but it started with an info-dump of facts making their way eventually toward an argument.

First Page Syndrome, in other words:

When you're just trying to get words down, and figuring out where you want to go with them as you write.

Useful for drafting - but then you have to go *back* and make it read like you had your shit together all along. 🙃

#Writing

Calling all goofy #Writers.

Taco Bell Quarterly is closing to submissions in a few days.

You read their name right. They're on the hunt for Taco Bell themed literature - 500 to 1500 words. $100 per acceptances.

I might write a goofy piece inspired by the fact that Taco Bell came to and failed to thrive in Colombia.

As a writing exercise, mainly. Just something for fun.

If you're so inclined, toss a goofball piece their way, too!

#WhySoSerious
#WritersOfCoSo #Writing
https://tacobellquarterly.org/submission-guidelines/

The universe is way cooler than all our tempests in teapots here on Earth.

#Science #News #Space
https://www.theguardian.com/science/2023/jul/19/two-faced-star-with-helium-and-hydrogen-sides-baffles-astronomers-janus

Morning, CoSo!

Today for #OnlySky, I've got a deep dive building from recent US news. Yes, there's a lot of anxiety about the fate of US justice and democracy - but how much of it is coming from media-led discourse that fails to offer voters a better civic conversation?

(If you're a bit exhausted by recent sensational news about a certain politician, this might be the corrective for you!) #Politics #Democracy

https://onlysky.media/mclark/the-struggle-for-us-democracy/

"The median income for a full-time writer last year was $23,000. And writers' incomes declined by 42% between 2009 and 2019."

Emphasis on "median", not mean. This isn't work to live on, in most circumstances. And it's not going to get any easier from here on out: not because AI is going to replace us, but because AI tech is going to spam the hell out of our distribution paths.

Fun times. Touch grass! Cultivate joy.

#WritingLife #WritersOfCoSo

https://www.npr.org/2023/07/17/1187523435/thousands-of-authors-urge-ai-companies-to-stop-using-work-without-permission

How's everyone doing tonight?

If words don't work for you, I will accept 1 to 3 emoji in their place.

Like so:

🤷⏸️🥁

(Waiting for the marching band to finish so I can tie off an article. 🙃 Oops. That's 4.)

Ah, the good ol' evening walk strikes again.

One thing we feminized folk have over masculinized folk is that if jumped in the street we're more likely to receive aid. But if a fellow from a 2-hour-off pueblo gets robbed while walking back to the intercity busses from work in the morning? He might be seen as unworthy of help.

So... yes, I got a pretty banged up & exhausted fellow on a bus home just now.

But I'm still going to let myself be sad for a bit that he'd been waiting hours for aid. 💔

Today's #Newsletter is one of my "big tent humanist" pieces.

We're looking at a biblical parable that, thanks to the flawed economic and propertied language it uses to make its spiritual point, has relevance to contemporary thinking about workers' rights.

Today's workers, vineyards, & landowners are a little different - but our struggle to tell stories of moral action without losing ourselves to unjust propertied systems remains the same.

#Humanism
#GlobalHumanism
https://mlclark.substack.com/p/is-it-not-lawful-for-me-to-do-what

Morning CoSo. 🍵

Still feeling haggard and missing my alarm, but the important thing is remembering that one cannot reset routines in a night.

#PasoAPaso #OneStepAtATime

A splendidly thoughtful article with its finger on the pulse of what a mess we've made of lit culture, and how distorted expectations are the thieves of creative joy for so many of us.

"We live in a time of fantastic cultural plenitude, but also a kind of affective poverty, weighed down by the need to only consume what everyone else seems to be consuming."

#Writers #WritingLife #WritingCommunity #WritersOfCoSo

https://jessrow.substack.com/p/going-nowhere